payables lockbox - how to document for board reviewers

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Payables Lockbox is a business class online bill pay system whose primary focus is to make improvements to your organization’s invoice approval process and payment processing. In order to effectively use Payables Lockbox, you should have a general understanding of how the system works and its overall feature set. The Payables Lockbox process is detailed in three primary steps. Step 1: Strongroom Receives, Codes, and Images Invoices Paper invoices are either mailed by the vendor to a PO Box setup for your business, or they are forwarded from your office location. Invoices may also be sent electronically by email or fax. Strongroom performs some initial coding on the invoice, such as the company for which the invoice applies, vendor, invoice number, invoice amount, invoice date and due date. Step 2: Invoices Enter Customer’s Approval Process The invoice enters into the first approver’s queue of the approval process. A unique approval process can exist for each company defined in Payables Lockbox. Email notifications are sent to users in the approval process when they have invoices in their queue. Customized scheduling for these invoices is available by user. Users may approve invoices to go to the next approver, or reject invoices to the previous user in the process. Step 3: Strongroom Processes Payments Approved for Invoices At 4pm UCT every day, Strongroom runs a payment batch process that determines which invoices have been approved for payment. For payments being made by check, Strongroom groups any relevant payments, adds remittance information on the check stub, and then prints and mails the checks. If any payments are being made by ACH (Automated Clearing House), Strongroom sends an ACH file to the customer’s bank for processing. Cutoff times for ACH payments may be dependent on your bank.

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Page 1: Payables Lockbox - How To Document for Board Reviewers

      Payables Lockbox is a business class online bill pay system whose primary focus is to make improvements to your organization’s invoice approval process and payment processing.  In order to effectively use Payables Lockbox, you should have a general understanding of how the system works and its overall feature set.  The Payables Lockbox process is detailed in three primary steps.   

 Step 1:  Strongroom Receives, Codes, and Images Invoices 

Paper invoices are either mailed by the vendor to a PO Box setup for your business, or they are forwarded from your office location. 

Invoices may also be sent electronically by email or fax. 

Strongroom performs some initial coding on the invoice, such as the company for which the invoice applies, vendor, invoice number, invoice amount, invoice date and due date. 

Step 2:  Invoices Enter Customer’s Approval Process 

The invoice enters into the first approver’s queue of the approval process. 

A unique approval process can exist for each company defined in Payables Lockbox.  Email notifications are sent to users in the approval process when they have invoices in their 

queue.  Customized scheduling for these invoices is available by user.  Users may approve invoices to go to the next approver, or reject invoices to the previous user 

in the process. Step 3:  Strongroom Processes Payments Approved for Invoices  At 4pm UCT every day, Strongroom runs a payment batch process that determines which invoices 

have been approved for payment.  For payments being made by check, Strongroom groups any relevant payments, adds remittance 

information on the check stub, and then prints and mails the checks. 

If any payments are being made by ACH (Automated Clearing House), Strongroom sends an ACH file to the customer’s bank for processing.  Cutoff times for ACH payments may be dependent on your bank. 

            

Page 2: Payables Lockbox - How To Document for Board Reviewers

The Payables Lockbox system is very easy to use – Below you will find a step‐by step guide to follow 

when using Payables Lockbox to review invoices. 

 To Review Invoices 

 Step 1 – You will then log onto the website with your user name and password.   Note:  You must be a registered user with the system in order to login.  If you are experiencing difficulty, please contact your management company.  Step 2 ‐ Once logged in, you will be on the “My Invoices” page.  

  

 

Page 3: Payables Lockbox - How To Document for Board Reviewers

 Search for Invoices  

 

Step 1 – From your “My Invoices” page, bring down the dropdown menu and click on “Invoice Search” as seen below. 

 

  

Step 2 – You will be taken to the “Invoice Search” page.  You can now search by several different 

criteria such as Vendor, Amount, and Invoice Date. (Quick Search Items on the left do not apply to 

reviewer only) It also allows for “wildcard” searches, so if you do not remember the account 

number or vendor name exactly, you can put in 707* and it will populate every invoice that had 

those three digits of an account number on it. 

 

 

Page 4: Payables Lockbox - How To Document for Board Reviewers

Step 3 – The next page will reflect your search results. You can click on the invoice number to review a pdf of the invoice and its history    

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Page 5: Payables Lockbox - How To Document for Board Reviewers

To Search for Payments 

 

Step 1 – Under the payments tab at the top of your screen, you will find that the only item on the dropdown menu is “Payment Search”.  Click on that link. 

 

 Step 2 – You will be taken to the “Payment Search” page, which looks similar to the “Invoice Search” page in the previous section.  Here you enter in search criteria for the payments. 

 

  

Step 3 – You will then be taken to your search results.  You can view the details of the payment and the 

invoice related to the payment by clicking on the “view” tab. 

 

  

 

 

 

 

Page 6: Payables Lockbox - How To Document for Board Reviewers

Vendor Reports 

 

Vendor reports can be generated two ways. First, from the invoice search page this will show every 

invoice in the system for that vendor and the status of that invoice. 

 

  

Second, from the payment search page this will show only the paid invoices for said vendor 

 

  

Detail on invoices paid can be found by either clicking on the invoice or view tabs. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Page 7: Payables Lockbox - How To Document for Board Reviewers

Expense Reports 

 

Expense code reports can be generated from the invoice search page.    

 Expense code report to view details click invoice number 

 

Page 8: Payables Lockbox - How To Document for Board Reviewers

Sign up for Board Review 

 

Association Name: _____________________________________________________________________ 

Your First and Last Name: ________________________________________________________________ 

Your e‐mail address:  ___________________________________________________________________ 

Cummings Property Management will create an account using the above provided information. You will receive an e‐mail from StrongRoom ([email protected]) with registration instructions. Click on the link in step 1 of the email, accept the terms and then create your user name (6 characters long) and create a password (7 characters long, 1 digit, 1 upper case and 1 lower case letter). Once this is done you will be redirected to the “my invoices” page. In the future when you want to log on you will go to https://cummingspm.payableslockbox.com